It was literally going to be an adventure as we crawl inside the air vents. As the oldest of our sisters, I thought I have the confidence that we can pull ourselves through this obstacle. And of course, at that time, I thought the idea of having a baby was a bad one. But I had yet to see about that, if it weren't for the dust, cobwebs and creepy crawlies in a horrible portal.
Right now, the Loud sisters are crawling inside the air vents, with an excitable toddler Lynn at the front and with a cautious 6-year-old Lori behind the group.
"Are you sure Lynn knows where she going?" Luna asks.
"Uh-huh. I can see it from her excitement," Luan responds confidently.
"How would you know? She keeps saying 'brother'," the then 4-year-old sister keeps on asking.
"Don't worry, she says so herself," her sister confirms.
Then they both witness Lynn keep mumbling, "Brother! Brother!" But when she notices a bug crawling across her, the 2-year-old tries to catch it, causing her to tap on the metal floors of the vent.
"Lynn, be quiet. We don't want to get in trouble," Luna insists. But the excitable toddler ignores her warnings, since she has not arrived at the age of understanding language. Eventually, she catches the bug, revealed to be a jumping spider) and holds it on her own hands. She gets attracted at the sight of holding an insect on her hands, making her two sisters sigh in relief.
"Well, at least she's not brothering us anymore. Hehehe. Get it?" Luan jokes, making Luna frown on it.
Meanwhile, Leni and Lori catches up from behind, with Leni trembling in fear and clinging her plush toy dinosaur and Lori being annoyed by it.
"Leni, will you literally hurry up?!" Lori persuades her alarmed sister.
"I can't. This place is too spooky. Who knows what spooky things will come?" Leni worryingly implies. After which, she bumps into Lynn, whom she sees with a spider on her hand. Of course, Leni crawls hurriedly in fear, crying "Spider!" and getting passed Luna and Luan.
"Leni! Stop!" Luna and Luan warn her. But Leni continues to crawl out of the vent. Suddenly, she falls from a loose lid that hurls her down.
Seeing this, the four remaining sisters shout "Leni!" and rush to her aide. Luna and Luan are able to stick themselves out of the vent, but Lynn pushes them down and falls to them as well. Lori tries to catch Lynn but thanks to a foul diaper, she also falls down. But gratefully, they all land safe to a laundry cart inside a pantry.
"Be lucky we land on laundry, or I'll literally turn you all into human pretzels!" Lori warns her rowdy sisters.
"Oooh, do we come in sweet or cheesy? Hehehe," Luan jokingly follows, enraging Lori more.
Suddenly, they hear someone entering the room, prompting Lori to caution them, "Quick guys, hide!", and hide underneath the sheets. It is a nurse who entered, taking the cart with her and away from the room. The nurse then takes it to various rooms and places the used bed sheets and pillow cases in it. One sheet is even dusty that Lynn is forced to sneeze, but Luna swiftly covers her nose.
At one moment when the nurse leaves the cart at one side, the girls get out of it and set off on their own. Though they had been to the hospital several times, they never set foot on themselves, and without parental supervision.
"Okay guys, let's go back," Lori says.
"But Lori, we want to see our baby brother," Luna responds.
"Haven't you guys heard what dad said? He'll come back with our baby brother," the eldest Loud sister replies.
"But we wanna see him now!" Luan voices out.
"Yeah Lori, we are so excited to see our new brother," Luna agrees.
"I can't wait to cuddle him and play with him."
"Or even sing him lullabies and rock him to his sleep."
Then Leni adds to the mix, "Or make him mittens and make him realize that spiders are evil."
"Brother! Brother! Brother!" Lynn mumbles out of joy.
"See. Even Lynn is excited for our new baby brother," Luan emphasizes, then tries to carry her sister towards Lori, "Come on Lori!"
"Brother! Brother! Brother!" Lynn keeps mumbling in insistence for Lori to let her take them to their brother.
After reflecting the stakes, though not much since she is still a little girl, Lori senses a person approaching to their direction. She then has her sisters hide to a pathway with a dead end. The person, another nurse whistling, subsequently passes by their direction without sensing them. At a sigh, Lori goes back to reflecting but not before seeing her baby sister watering her eyes, pleading and wanting to see her baby brother. With that, the older sister replies, "Okay, let's find our baby brother."
With that, the sisters holler in celebration. But Lori clarifies what she said, "Okay girls. Fine. But we need to be quiet and hidden at all times. And we need to be back before the nurse guy in our room spots us missing. What if he knows we are missing?"
"Don't worry. At least he's sleeping," Luna points out, "What can ever wake him up?"
Speaking of which, back at the lounge, Patrick the intern nurse is snoring at his sleep. As he shifts his sleeping position, he suddenly falls down from the couch and awakes from such a hit.
"Wha…What happened? Kids, nice you can be that quiet," Patrick spouts groggily. He starts regaining consciousness and suddenly realizes that the kids whom he supposed to be watching are gone.
"Oh no," the intern utters, causing him to search all over the room for their whereabouts. From under the sofas to behind the curtains, he sees no sign of them. Finally, Patrick notices the air vent's lid open, with a trace of white substance on it. He tastes it, confirming it to be "powder, baby powder" as he utters. Getting enough signs of their assumed location, Patrick proceeds to obtain them.
"You think you brats can escape from Patrick. Well, you're wrong!" Patrick says to himself, making him don a serious business face, taking a net from an "In Case of Emergency, Break the Glass" case and setting off to find them. But that is not before locking to ensure that the "missing kids" situation never goes public.
Meanwhile, Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan and Lynn stroll by the brightly lit halls of Royal Woods General Hospital. They never distinguish what part of the hospital they are in. They just longingly seek the new member of their family. But Lori describes it far more detailed.
We are literally walking on a cold hallway in Royal Woods General. While our sisters were relaxed, I was unnerved what I was able to saw from the fenced windows on the door. Ailing patients in their beds, coughing, choking, throbbing, bleeding, even going crazy. But worst of all, I get to see a person getting surgery. I almost hurled in horror seeing that for the first time. But I tried to relax for the others not to see it.
"Lori, are you okay?" Luan asks, seeing her disgusted face.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lori says in denial.
But I'm not fine, even if I have to drag myself to the mess, just to hide my troubles on having you around.
The five sisters are passing by each hall casually.
"I haven't seen any scary flowers so far. Are you sure this is a 'house-petal'?" Leni addresses, annoying Lori.
As they walk silently, Lynn begins to feel commotion in her pants. At a gassy signal, her sister senses a stench surrounding them.
"Eww what's that smell?" Luna reacts.
"I guess we know who it came from," Lori says.
And altogether, they mention Lynn's name, aware that their toddler sister is soiling her pants. However, she is ignorant of her business, even trying to make an innocent cute baby face.
"How can we handle this?" Lori utters in panic, "I don't know how to change a diaper. I literally barely can dress my dolls."
"Don't worry, I got this," Leni asserts, "But we need something to replace her nappy."
"Okay fine. I'll find a diaper for Lynn. You guys hide somewhere safe," the older Loud sister suggests.
"But where we'll hide?" Luna asks, causing Lori to think of a possible hiding place. She then spots an open, vacant room and checks it out. Thinking it would be a secure place, Lori drags her sisters in there.
"Just stay right here guys. I don't want us to get in trouble. Okay?" Lori insists, prompting the sisters to nod.
With that, she sets off to find a diaper for Lynn without making subtle that she is unauthorized to wander around the hospital.
Back to the other sisters, Leni and Luna try to pacify a wailing Lynn since her diaper is filled.
"Oh no, her diapy's dripping!" Luna notes.
"This is bad. I think we should…" Leni utters as she accidentally opens Lynn's diaper, releasing the awful stench that came from her stools.
"Auggggghhhh…gross!" they both react loudly.
Luan then escapes the stench-filled room to get fresh air from the outside. There, she spots two clowns walk by the distance and enter a room. Since she had prior interest in clowns and everything comedy, the then 3-year-old follows suit.
Once catching up with them, she peeks at the room where she sees the clowns try their best to cheer up a 4-year-old kid who just went through an organ transplant operation. Their attempts are kind of hit-and-miss from joking "Why can't the flower ride its bike?" to making balloon animals. However, Luan is amused by them and even claps to them. They, of course, notice her.
"Uhmmm little girl, what are you doing here?" the first clown who looks like Bozo asks.
"I like clowns. Clowns are the best people of earth!" Luan happily expresses.
"That's great. But you are not supposed to be here. Kids are not allowed here," the second clown who looks like clown Lincoln from "Funny Business" implies.
"But he's a kid," she makes a valid point by emphasizing the child patient.
"True, but he's a different kind of kid," the first clown justifies.
But Luan pleads, "Please! Can I see you do your act? Please! I love clowns. And it's my dream to be a clown someday. I can do jokes like 'What does two enemy pirates do? They arghhh-ue.' Hehehe. Get it?"
Though the two professional clowns are dismayed on that corny joke, the kid applauds on it happily. Likewise, Luan continues her stint by trying a physical gag with her flower squirter. She tries to adjust it for her gag, but it accidentally squirts water to her face. The kid praises on it joyfully, making Luan laugh along with him. With this, the two clowns think of an idea.
I didn't know that our sisters are literally scattering themselves at that moment. Gladly, with my fine talents in acting "nice" and mom's weekly binge on Grey's Anatomy, it helped me at that moment. But not this moment.
Meanwhile, Lori stumbles on a directory of the hospital to see where she can obtain diapers. But at a distance, the nurse intern Patrick spots her. He quickly charges to her, but she flees on time. There starts a wild good chase of Lori being chased by the deranged nurse who wants to get his job done. They run around the halls, running across doctors, nurses, patients, visitors and other staff members. But thankfully, their chase have not caused damaged. But one smack from Patrick's net to a cardboard cutout of Daniel Radcliffe is an exception.
After a series of whacky hijinks, Patrick has Lori cornered to a hallway's dead end. "Now I've got ya, you rascal!" he expresses rather evilly.
But suddenly, a tittering voice is calling him, "Patrick! Patrick!" The intern then shifts to his left side to see his fellow interns Bob and Edward, with Bobby calling him.
"Oh Bob! Edward! What you doing here?" Patrick asks them.
"Uhmm we are assigned in ICU, remember?" Bob asserts, making Patrick stutter, "Aren't you assigned in Pediatrics 2nd Floor?"
Having him distracted, Lori scoots off quietly.
"Oh, and what do you have behind there?" Edward snarly asks in the same tone as the character famously voiced by Rodger Bumpass. "Is that a net?"
"What? No…Why would I bring a net at work? Hehehe," Patrick says nervously in denial.
"Whatever. Well whatever it is, I am sure you might wanna bring that as you go back cleaning the ER equipment. Ha ha ha," the rival intern boasts, walking away from him.
"Sure you okay buddy?" Bob asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm really fine," Patrick insists as he drags his friend away from the scene, "Just go back to ICU and I can go back to find the kids…I meant, keys…to Dr. Lopez's office."
After he drags his friend away, the nurse intern retrieves the net that he threw and goes back chasing Lori.
Back at Leni and Luna, they finally get rid of Lynn's repulsive diaper and throw it to the garbage gun.
"That was close!" Leni utters.
"Right, thought Lynn would release a stink bomb. Am I right Luan?" Luna responds, but she gets no response from pun-loving sister who tends to throw in a pun after a problem strikes. "Wait, I know Luan would throw in a joke on this."
"Yeah, I thought my own two eyes would hear her joke," Leni implies.
Then Luna notices something, "Uhmm where's Luan?" With that implication, the two hurriedly search the whole room, to no sign of their dear sister.
"Okay, let's not panic. Maybe she went out without us looking," Luna deduces.
"I don't know. Maybe we should have looked at where she's going," Leni implies.
Without other options, Luna takes the lead by laying down their plan, "Okay, you stay here while I go search for them. Okay?"
"Please be in a hurry," Leni coaxes as Luna gets out of the room in search of Luan. Though she is persistent, Luna gets easily distracted from a song being played to a patient. She enters the room where the song came from to see a Hispanic family singing a Spanish version of "Hey Jude" by The Beatles to the grandfather of the clan. Amazed by this, she joins along the jam.
Back at Lori, she sneaks easily across the 1st floor halls, since the doctors are mostly busy. One thing she gains from acting nice is acting casual to fool people that she has a problem at hand. So, she easily applies this at the hospital. She stumbles upon a moving tray with a towel that can be used for Lynn and tries to obtain the said towel.
However, Patrick is able to catch up with her again, cornering her finally with no other way for her to escape.
"There's no way you can escape from me, you brat!" Patrick evilly utters.
"Wait, please! Don't. I know we messed a lot here. But I am trying to find a diaper for my baby sister. And I promise I will bring us back into the room. Please! Give me a chance!" Lori whines pleadingly.
However, as Patrick aims to catch Lori with his net, a doctor bursts from the emergency room to alert this: "I need a nurse here in ICU 7. Stat! Caesarean delivery!"
With that, Patrick slowly lowers his net and drops it. Realizing it is a crucial moment for the girl's life, he prioritizes her virtue by giving her $20 bucks and the key to the lounge. He then lends her a favor, "It's your mom there. She needs help. And now, she needs you. But she wants you to do this. Use the money and buy diapers from that vending machine behind you. Find your sisters. And tell them that your brother is coming. I don't want you girls in trouble. I will be back in a moment with your brother. Now go!" Afterwards, Patrick rushes to aid on the successful delivery of Lori's mom.
Never at that moment did I witness a person who would do such a right thing and persuade me to do the same thing. I always thought that being the only angel in the world would be the best thing. But being an angel to someone in need? Never was my heart tugged that day. But you know the whole story how I ended up like this in the present day.
Persuaded by that small act of kindness, Lori is persuaded to take Patrick's words and bring back her sisters at one piece.
After that, Lori coincidentally encounters Luan assisting the two clowns to cheer up the kid earlier. The three entertainers are doing the eye-poking gag from the Three Stooges, lifting up the spirits of the kid.
"Luan!" Lori calls her sister, "We gotta go!"
"Sorry guys, I've gotta go. Hope I can see you someday," Luan bids her goodbye.
"No Luan. For clowns, it's always 'see you later, alligator'!" the first clown stresses.
"Well, in that case, smell you later guys!" she says this with pinching the clowns' noses, making them laugh.
After Luan exchanges goodbyes with the clowns, Lori drags her hurriedly back to the room.
Then, in a sheer amount of coincidences, they spot Luna performing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by The Beatles with the Hispanic family. Their music jams are rather merry.
But Lori interrupts the sing-along, prompting Luna to go. "Sorry guys. I have to go back," Luna says to the Hispanic family, "I meant, 'Muchas gracias, amigos'."
"We can understand English, you know," the patriarch of the family reminds.
Luna then corrects herself, "Oh, well, thank you amigos!" And the family waves her goodbye.
After getting them, Lori drags them back to the room they were originally in.
"Lori, have you got Lynn's diaper?" Luna asks.
"It's with me," Lori answers, "But I've got a better question: how come you to get out of the room?"
Then both Luna and Luan have their reasons intertwine with each other that Lori can only gibberish among them. They both end with, "I'm sorry!"
But to their surprise, Lori forgives them with a hug. "It's okay. You know what? Our brother's coming."
"Really?!" Luna and Luan holler in excitement.
"Yeah but we need to get back. I mean back in the room where dad brought us. Now."
With Lori's insistence, they rush to the room where they left Leni and Lynn. However, they are not there when they arrived. The three sisters search for them around the floor sneakily. And eventually, Lori spots a familiar face passing by the nursery. It is Leni and Lynn, taking a glimpse of the babies sleeping in their respective incubators.
"This must be where the storks get their babies and fetch them to their new mommies and daddies. Maybe our new baby brother is here," Leni amazedly implies.
But Lynn senses that her baby brother is nowhere to be found in the nursery. She signifies this with a sway on her face. Suddenly, Lori, Luna and Luan enter the nursery.
"Hey guys, guess what we found here!" Leni happily welcomes them.
Luna and Luan can only glance in awe of the nursery before them.
"Wow, look at this room full of babies," Luna expresses her astonishment.
"They look so cute!" Luan squirms.
"What are you doing in here Leni? I thought you and Lynn are supposed to be waiting in the room," Lori confronts her sister.
"You guys took so long. Me and Lynn-y took a walk to find her nappies," Leni reasons out innocently. Lori then learns that Leni walked her baby sister without any diapers in her pants. "Then we saw this place full of babies. But I don't know if they are locked or not. I think they're locked!"
"Check this one guys! He's awake!" Luna calls her sisters' attention, prompting Luan, Leni and Lynn to proceed to Luna.
And then, at that moment, I also saw him, my one and only…
Lori stays behind but glances on one baby sleeping in the incubator. The aforementioned baby is of Hispanic skin, and is seen to be rocking in her sleep. The older sister takes a moment to witness such a peaceful angel trying to sleep. Abruptly, by the window, Lori sees a Hispanic boy glancing at the same baby she was glancing on. She waves to the boy, making him wave back and smile at her. She smiles in response as well. But not wanting to get much attention, as the sisters are unauthorized to enter a nursery, Lori signals the boy not to tell anyone of their whereabouts. Thankfully, he promises with a pinky swear, making Lori happy and enamored by the Hispanic boy. (You can take two guesses who is that boy.)
Returning to her sisters, Lori persuades them, "Guys, let's go back. I think our baby brother is about to go to our room." Happily, they all exit the room, with Lynn getting to wear a fresh diaper in the process.
After a visit in the nursery, the girls sneak their way back to the room without a trace. However, as Lori is about to unlock the door, the key suddenly slips and falls to a nearby drain. The head nurse is able to hear this commotion, but Leni swiftly takes a hairpin and picks the lock, allowing them to enter the room in a jiffy before the nurse turns her head to the room shut.
And safely, the Loud sisters slouch to couches to relax from such a bushed journey around the hospital.
As an innocent 6-year-old, I am so overwhelmed with what's happening around me, even so with the arrivals of you guys. Never thought that waiting for my lovely brother would be a memorable one. But there you go, and there you came, Lincoln…